Fantastic Fest 2009

The best short films can pack in more adrenaline, creativity and flat-out insanity than a million big-budget blockbusters. Or they can show you something so ambitiously horrendous that you beg for mercy. Your intrepid FF programmers have scoured the international celluloid goldmines for the most skull-bursting, taste-annihilating and eyeball-destroying shorts in existence, and this program is truly the motherlode.

WARNING: don't bring grandma.

DARA (dir. Timo Tjahjanto & Kimo Tjahjanto, Indonesia, 2009, 26 min)
AUDITION meets SAW in this slice of genre-blending perfection from Indonesia. Mother always said you are what you eat.

ELSE (dir. Thibault Emin, France, 2009, 16 min)
A bizarre epidemic has people absorbed into their surroundings, and one young couple fights to maintain their identities as the world blends around them.

EXCISION (dir. Richard Bates Jr., USA, 2008, 18 min)
An angry, awkward young woman's obsession with surgery brings some unexpected changes to the family.

FULL EMPLOYMENT (dir. Thomas Oberlies & Matthias Vogel, Germany, 2008, 12 min)
The revolutionary new government program allows young people to assist the elderly in carrying out their occupational responsibilities, no matter what the job is.

INSIDE (dir. Tracie Laymon, USA, 2009, 14 min)
What do you do when there's something growing inside of you? You get rid of it, of course.

MAMA (dir. Andy Muschietti, Spain, 2008, 3 min)
Two sisters cower in their bedroom, fearing their mother's arrival. When she finally returns home, there's no escape.

MY LOVE LIVES IN THE SEWER (dir. Manuel Arija De La Cuerda, Spain, 2009, 18 min)
Coded messages lead to forbidden love and lovers doomed never to meet. Striking, surprising, and deeply deviant: an experience not to be missed.

ROAD TO MOLOCH (dir. Robert Glickert, USA, 2009, 17 min)
Three marines follow a wounded man to a cave that may be the home of evil incarnate.

SHAPES (dir. Alan Brennan, Ireland, 2008, 5 min)
Claire's old enough to know there's no monster in the bedroom, but when the lights go out...

SINKHOLE (dir. Eric Scherbarth, USA, 2009, 13 min)
A self-serving developer learns that money can't buy everything when he visits an abandoned coalmine shrouded in darkness.

STRATES (dir. Yohan Guignard, France-Belgium, 2009, 9 min)
A farmer discovers a very unexpected bounty buried in his soil.